Part 48 (1/2)

”We can easily find it again; it must be there.”

He pointed in the direction in which he thought Grafton lay, and continued:

”It will merely make our walk back to town the longer, and that is what I like.”

But she, who had lived her life on the plains and in the mountains, was not so sure. She knew that they had walked far, because not even the smoke of Grafton could be seen now. Yet he was with her.

”Suppose we try that direction,” she a.s.sented.

”And if it isn't right, we will try another; our train stays at Grafton all day.”

They walked on, saying to each other the little things that mean nothing to others, but which lovers love, and Grafton yet lay hidden in its place between the swells. The skies, changing now from a bright to a steely gray, were unmarred by a single wisp of smoke.

Harley felt at last an uneasiness which increased gradually as they went on; the country was provokingly monotonous, one swell was like another, and the dips between were just the same; there were patches of brown gra.s.s eaten down by cattle, but mostly the soil was bare; it seemed to Harley, at that moment, a weary and ugly land, but it set off the star in the midst of it--Sylvia--like a diamond in the dust. He looked up; the mountains, before blue and distinct in the clear sky, were now gray and vague.

”We must have walked fast and far,” he said. ”Look how that range of mountains has moved away.”

Sylvia looked, and her face whitened again.

”It is not distance, John,” she said. ”It is a mist. See, the clouds are coming!”

The mountains moved farther away and became shadowy; the steel-gray of the skies darkened; up from the southwest rolled ugly brown clouds; there was a rush of chill air.

Harley understood all, and a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed over him. But his fear was for her, not for himself.

”It is going to snow,” said Sylvia.

”And we are lost in this desert; it was I, too, who brought you here,”

said Harley.

She looked up into his eyes, and her face was not pale.

”We are together,” she said.

He bent his head and kissed her, for the second time that day.

”You are the bravest woman in the world, Sylvia,” he said. ”Now we live or die together, and we are not afraid.”

”We are not afraid.”

He put his arm around her waist, and she did not resist. Both expected to die, and they felt that they belonged to each other for eternity. A strange, spiritual exaltation possessed them; the world about them was unreal now--they two were all that was real.

”The snow comes, dearest,” she said.

Up from the southwest the ugly brown clouds were still rolling, and the sky above them still darkened; the mountains were gone in the mist, the chill wind strengthened and shrieked over the plain. Harley kept his arm around Sylvia's waist, and drew her more closely to him that he might shelter her.

”Let the snow come,” he said.

Great white flakes, borne upon the edge of the wind, fell damp upon their faces, and suddenly the air was filled with them as they came in blinding clouds; the wind ceased to shriek and died, and the brown clouds, now fused into one ma.s.s that covered all the heavens, opened and let down the snow in unbroken volume.

”We must go on, sweetheart,” said Harley, rousing himself. ”To stand here is death. We may find some kind of shelter if we go; there is none in this place.”